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By Vincent Lucarelli
Blade Staff Writer
John Walter Squire, a noted landscape architect who left his mark on the visual character of the Toledo area, died Dec. 30 at his Sylvania home. He was 86.
The Squire family said he had been battling pulmonary fibrosis for more than a decade.
Mr. Squire’s love for landscape architecture started in his boyhood with a love of the outdoors and for working with his hands as he helped on family projects such as building a house with his grandfather.
“I think when he initially went to Ohio State, he wanted to be a forest ranger,” Mr. Squire’s son Jim said Sunday. “He always enjoyed being outside and in nature and was an avid skier. After a year or so in college, he just discovered landscape architecture and decided that was his calling.”
A native of the Cleveland area, the elder Mr. Squire moved to the Toledo area in 1969 to join the design firm of Bob Mortensen and Dick Meyers, some friends of his from college, at what would soon be called Mortensen, Meyers, Squire and Smith. This turned into the Collaborative, an architecture design and planning firm that is still based in Toledo to this day.
Mr. Mortensen, now the last living member of the original team of eight that founded the Collaborative, said that Mr. Squire offered a specific set of skills that made him want to bring him in as a business partner.
“John was a very creative person and a very good designer,” Mr. Mortensen said, noting that he and Mr. Squire go back to the late 1950s. “He knew how to get the job done.”
Mr. Squire would leave the Collaborative in 1976 to create his own firm, which would eventually win him many jobs and much acclaim.
Now residing in Virginia, Mr. Mortensen still took great care to keep in contact with Mr. Squire over the years.
“I continued to see him whenever I was in Toledo,” Mr. Mortensen said. “We would talk on the phone quite often too. We were just very close friends.”
During his career, Mr. Squire would work on projects such as the entrance to Ottawa Park, the campground at Maumee Bay State Park, and the memorial garden at Epworth United Methodist Church, where he was a regular member.
He also did many jobs in and around area residential homes.
His landscape design for the old Stouffer Restaurant in Toledo even won him a national award that was presented to him in person by First Lady Pat Nixon at the White House.
“My father knew that his actions mattered,” the younger Mr. Squire said. “He made a difference in the beautification of Toledo, northwest Ohio, and southeast Michigan. Things were never just [carried out] to be done, they had reason behind it, and he tried to be artistic at the same time.”
The younger Mr. Squire said that his father had a hard time choosing a favorite project because it was like “choosing a favorite child,” but mentioned that his work at Maumee Bay State Park was something he was particularly proud of, where he laid out the campsites in a unique treelike cluster formation.
“A lot of times it is who you know, and Dad knew a lot of people,” the younger Mr. Squire said. “He networked himself very well through the community. Being a landscape architect, you have to bid for jobs.
“It is not like you are operating a retail store and people come to you,” he continued. “You need to know what’s going on, read the paper, know what projects are working and be plugged into the community. You have to be a salesman too, selling your ideas and your vision for how you are going to help that person accomplish their project.”
Outside of work, Mr. Squire kept his passion for design going, tinkering with a G-scale model railroad that he weaved throughout the garden outside his home, well into his old age. He had a cottage on Indiana’s Clear Lake for many years, was involved with the Kiwanis Club in downtown Toledo, sang in the choir at Epworth, and was on the board of trustees at Sylvania First United Methodist Church, and was involved in the Maumee Valley Historical Society as well.
Ted Ligibel, a noted expert on historic preservation who currently serves as professor emeritus of historic preservation at Eastern Michigan University, said that Mr. Squire was a major factor in the beginnings of his career in the early days of the Maumee Valley Historical Society and its Landmarks Committee.
“He was instrumental in my early career,” Mr. Ligibel said. “John was one of those people that was there right at the beginning in 1974. He let us use an empty office because he had a suite on top of the Bell Building in downtown where he had his business. He set up a phone for us and it really legitimized the preservation office because we had partnered with the Ohio Historical Society and the Department of the Interior to open a regional preservation program.”
Mr. Ligibel said that he does not think his career might have turned out the way it did if not for Mr. Squire’s help and noted the large role Mr. Squire played in the preservation of the area’s historic properties not only through his advocacy in the historical society, but through his day-to-day work at his design firm.
An article published in The Blade from 1978 describes exactly such a project, namely work done on the Hamlet, a development in Perrysburg Township that incorporated new buildings with the estates of W.W. Knight, George Ross Ford, and Henry L. Thompson. That project won Mr. Squire a residential design certificate of merit from the National Landscape Association.
“He was very sensitive to the cultural landscape,” Mr. Ligibel said, noting that though much of the preservation work with Mr. Squire occurred decades ago, the two were also able to keep a friendship.
Mr. Ligibel spoke of “the setting of a place and how important that was” to Mr. Squire.
“That got him a lot of credibility,” Mr. Ligibel said. “There was no downtime in his mind, he might be enjoying an event with his family but in the back of his mind, he might be thinking about where they are and the landscape. That was just him. It was his whole being.”
Born on June 14, 1936 in Lakewood, Ohio to Nelson and Eveline Squire, Mr. Squire is survived by Mary, his second wife to whom he was married 46 years; sons Jim, John, and Jeff; daughters Cindy and Emily, and six grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Epworth United Methodist Church at 4855 W. Central Ave. Funeral services and a lunch in the church’s Family Life Center will follow.
The family asks that tributes be made to Epworth United Methodist Church, designating the memorial garden or the church choir, or to the Maumee Valley Historical Society.
Published by The Blade on Jan. 10, 2023.
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